When She Said I Do (3 page)

Mr. Porter lowered his smoking pistol and tossed it into the grass. “Fire, then.”

Dade firmed his grip on his pistol and aimed.

Callie felt sick. Oh, why didn’t someone do something?

Mr. Porter began to walk forward, grim determination evident in every lurching step. “Go on. Fire. Don’t you think I deserve to die? Isn’t that why you gave challenge in the first place?”

He came closer and closer. Each step brought him farther into range. Dade could not miss now, not unless he intended to. One look at her brother’s face told Callie that he did not intend to.

Mr. Porter did not intend to stop, either, apparently. He continued his slow lurching walk directly toward the ball about to hurtle from Dade’s pistol.

What was he doing? Was he mad? Did he not see that Dade would fire?

Mr. Porter stopped at last when his chest was no more than eighteen inches from the barrel of Dade’s pistol.

“I’m waiting.” Mr. Porter’s rasping voice was clearly audible in Callie’s ears. “Fire. Do it. Wrap your finger around the trigger and pull it.”

Dade’s jaw worked. “You think to daunt me with this game?”

“I play no game. You have a grievance against me. I have none against you. Take your vengeance and be done with it. Let us all bloody well be done with it.”

Bloody well be done with it.
Callie’s thoughts skittered back to the night before. Mr. Porter’s strange manner of speaking—as if he thought himself to be soon lying cold in death. Did he want to die?

Yet his hands, his touch, his words, while dark and lonely, had thrilled her with their hunger and need. He wanted to live, she just knew it.

Perhaps he simply doesn’t know how.

Bastard
. Sudden fury enveloped Callie. To put them all through this, simply because he wanted to give up the fight, to slip beneath the waves of his misery?

And what of Dade? What was he to do now? If he put down his pistol, could he ever forgive himself for the dishonor? If he fired, could he ever forgive himself for taking a life?

But … he wouldn’t take a life. Would he? On her behalf, on behalf of the family honor, would her honorable misguided brother actually kill Mr. Porter?

With horror she saw Dade exhale, swallow, and blink.

Oh, dear heaven, he would.

Mr. Porter saw it, as well, for he straightened somewhat and lifted his head. And waited.

As if watching a play, Callie could see the future unfolding before her. Mr. Porter’s still, bleeding body on the ground. Dade, pale and undone, standing over him, pistol smoking. Mr. Porter, buried here on these grounds, no one in attendance but the vicar. Dade, standing trial, denounced as guilty of murder. Dade, swinging lifelessly from the hangman’s rope, his swollen tongue protruding from his mouth.

Callie wasn’t precisely sure how she got there. She must have already begun to run across the dewy grass before the moment arrived, because just as Dade’s finger began to tighten on the trigger, she slithered to a stop in front of Mr. Porter.

“You can’t shoot him!”

Dade jerked the pistol high with a curse. “Bloody hell, Callie!”

Callie planted herself squarely in front of Mr. Porter. In fact, her back pressed right against him—that was how close the pistol had been. “Dade, you mustn’t kill him!”

Dade snarled. “I rather think I must.”

Mr. Porter exhaled. “Please do.”

“Shut it!” Callie ordered Mr. Porter over her shoulder.

“Get out of the way, Callie. This no longer concerns you.”

“No longer concerns me?” Callie plunked her hands on her hips. “Well, I like that! Was it not I that Mr. Porter … er—”

“Interfered with?” Mr. Porter said helpfully.

“Batten it down!” Callie hissed over her shoulder. To Dade, she held out placating hands. “I didn’t want to tell you before but…” Blast it, now she was going to have to tell her overprotective, adoring older brother that she’d been a semiwilling participant in her own seduction. She opened her mouth to do just that. It wasn’t her fault that entirely different words came out.

“He made me a proposal!”

“He did?”

“I did?”

Luckily, Mr. Porter’s low and rasping question reached her ears only. She turned her head to glare at him. She could barely see one shadowed side of his face, the relatively unscarred side. His eye regarded her with surprise and a certain amount of cynical appreciation.

“Yes, you did,” she whispered urgently, unable to hide the desperate plea in her voice. “You
must
.”

He leaned close. “I only recall a certain proposition regarding pearls.” His breath was hot on her ear.

Callie elbowed him sharply. He caught her arm and kept her gaze. “But I have no wish to wed.”

“Can it truly be a fate worse than death?” she hissed at him.

“Well, when you put it that way…”

Callie shot a glance at the fuming Dade, then turned back to Mr. Porter. “So you agree?”

“Pearls,” Mr. Porter reminded her.

She narrowed her eyes, thinking quickly. “Wedding pearls? With the same terms of completion?”

His other arm slid securely—or perhaps it was acquisitively—around her waist. He nodded sharply. “I believe I can live with those terms.”

“Then ’tis a bargain.” Callie turned back to where Dade was gaping at their tense, whispered exchange. She smiled widely at him from Mr. Porter’s possessive embrace.

“Mr. Porter and I are to be married!”

*   *   *

Callie found herself standing in the Amberdell village vicar’s austere parlor, overseen by the vicar’s austere wife, clutching a minute posy of lily-of-the-valley—the only flowers Mama could find blooming in the vicar’s austere garden—being married to a hooded stranger.

She couldn’t blame the vicar. He did his austere best to induce Mr. Porter to remove his cape, but Mr. Porter simply ignored him. The vicar dared not press too far upon the area’s wealthiest landowner, although Callie saw the man pocket enough gold to weigh down his weskit before agreeing to the ceremony, hood and all.

Iris chose to express her maternal emotions by sighing loudly and waving a long lacy handkerchief as if she bid good-bye to a troop ship. Archie did a great deal of harrumphing and dabbing at his eyes. It seemed to Callie that her parents were tiptoeing right around the matter standing in the middle of the room—hood and all!

I don’t even know this man! Someone should really do something to stop this!

Dade would have if he could, she knew. He looked furious and miserable the entire time, and if he didn’t relax his fists eventually, his hands were going to freeze that way.

Yet what could he do? What could anyone do?

From beneath the cloak emerged a hand that reached for hers. Callie took a breath, took that hand, and turned to face the vicar.

The vicar was talking. She was sure of it, because the man’s mouth was moving and everyone was nodding along. However, all she could hear was the roaring in her ears and the hummingbird beat of her own panicked heart.

I cannot do this. I cannot. Not.

The large warm hand tightened on hers, squeezing nearly to the point of pain. It was precisely what she needed. She clung to that hand, grateful for the heat and solidity of it, as if it were her only tie to certainty. With great concentration, she found her feet still on the earth and the earth still rotating on its axis.

The bizarre ceremony proceeded to its end. After the vicar closed his book, a moment of awkward silence reigned. Archie interrupted it with a double harrumph and Iris blew her nose with a great, goosey honk.

People began to breathe and move again. When Mr. Porter released her hand, Callie was surprised to find that she could stand on her own. Her knees, although weak, were still very much in existence.

I am wed.

In the vicar’s office, Dade and Archie witnessed the marriage contract, along with another gentleman who Callie dimly recalled had come in with his wife just before the vicar began the vows.

Vows. Vows to a stranger.

Callie watched Mr. Porter’s hooded form bend to sign the contract, his hand swift, his signature decisive. After a moment, she managed to remember her own name and sign it as well. Yet, it was no longer her name, was it?

Her life, her forever, in this odd recluse’s hands.

Well, perhaps not forever. He’d bought himself a wife today, but only a strand of pearls’ worth. Callie resigned to stay and live up to Mr. Porter’s possibly dastardly demands, but she would hold him to his devil’s bargain—when the last pearl was restrung, she would take his name and leave him behind forever!

Oh, dear.
Demands.
Tonight would be her wedding night! She felt faint again. She really would have rather had some time to prepare. Did she even have a decent nightdress among her things? Was it clean? Would—would she need one? Resolving at that moment to dress like a swathed nomad for bed, she lifted her chin and reminded herself of her vow to love, honor, and obey until death did part them.

Or until I earn back those pearls. Whichever comes first.

As if he knew where her thoughts had wandered, Mr. Porter turned and regarded her from the shadow of his hood.

I find those terms acceptable.

Callie looked away. When the papers were all signed and witnessed and sealed with the vicar’s seal and Mr. Porter’s ring, Callie found herself tightly wrapped in her mother’s arms, wafting handkerchief and all.

“Oh, my pet, I don’t know what we shall do without you!”

Burn the whole madhouse down, most likely. I give you all a month at the most.

She smiled at Iris and the harrumphing Archie. “You will be fine. Dade will look after you and Orion hardly ever explodes anything anymore.”

Iris’s dreamy gaze focused on Callie for a single moment. Callie blinked at the sudden canny knowledge she saw in those faded blue eyes.

Iris tapped the tip of Callie’s nose with a finger. “Don’t tolerate any foolishness from that fellow, my darling—you’re a Worthington and don’t you forget it!” Then the unaccustomed asperity faded away and Iris began to drift slightly to port. “Such a fine set of shoulders on him, though…”

Dade steadied their mother and nodded tersely to Callie. “It’s not too late, you know,” he murmured. “We can have this whole matter annulled before anyone pours the tea.”

Callie shook her head. It was far, far too late. “No.”

Archie harrumphed. “Don’t be silly, boy! Callie and this fellow are mad for each other. One need only look at them to know that this is a love for the ages!”

Callie felt Mr. Porter before she heard or saw him. She knew the heat of him at her back and let out a breath when his arm twined about her waist from behind. Swallowing hard, she smiled at her father. “Yes, Papa.”

It was silly but it would be easier on them all if her parents continued in their self-induced delusion of her love match.

The unknown couple then approached to offer their condol—er, congratulations. The gentleman, a big, brown sort of fellow who sported the clothing of the gentry and the hands of a farmer, stood diffidently awaiting an introduction from Mr. Porter. When the ongoing uncomfortable silence informed them all that none was forthcoming, he bowed to Callie and offered his hand.

“Mrs. Porter, we are very pleased to meet you on this fine day. I am Mr. Henry Nelson and this is my wife, Betrice.” The lady was pretty, in a sharp-eyed, watchful sort of way, with delicate features and lovely black hair. Callie liked Nelson at once and decided that while Betrice might seem a bit high-strung, she was a fount of normality compared to Mr. Porter.

Callie curtsied. “Thank you for coming. I—” She stopped, confused. “Did the vicar ask you here to witness?”

Nelson laughed. “No, cousin. It was Lawrence who sent for us.”

“Cousin!” Callie’s smile widened into something truly welcoming. “Oh, you’re family!” She turned her smile onto Betrice. “Oh, if you came so quickly you must live quite close by!”

Betrice nodded, her eyes flicking toward Mr. Porter, who had not relinquished his hold on Callie but neither had he taken the merest notice of his cousins. Callie would have liked to plant her elbow firmly in his belly for being so public with his … er … affection, but she could hardly let these people, who likely knew everyone in the village, have any worse opinion of her than they surely already did.

Nelson nodded and smiled. “We have the neighboring farmhold, Springdell. Nothing so grand and impressive as the estate of Amberdell Manor, of course.”

Callie blinked. “Amberdell?”

Mr. Porter’s arm tightened. “Calliope has not yet seen the grounds of Amberdell Manor, but I believe she has a fine appreciation of the house.”

Estate.
“Yes, the house. I am most … er … impressed.”

He has an estate. Great cannonballs—I have an estate!
Her smile widened. “I cannot wait to gain a true appreciation of the grounds,” she purred.

Something happened to Mr. Porter. She only knew because he had her pressed to his large, warm side and she was aware of every breath he took—so when she felt his chest spasm and heard a small choked sound in his throat, she was the only one in the room to notice.

Could it have been a rusty chuckle?

Do hermits laugh?

Chapter 3

After the ceremony Callie stood before the entrance of Amberdell Manor, where the aged limestone basked in the last golden light of afternoon, and bid good-bye to everything she knew.

Mama wept, Papa snuffled into his voluminous handkerchief, and Dade glowered. Mr. Porter lurked near the grand door, as if guarding it against intruders. Well, considering the past twenty-four hours, perhaps one could understand his territorialism.

Good-byes went round and then round again. Callie practically had to shove Dade into the vehicle, even as he cast a venomous glare at Mr. Porter over her shoulder.

The carriage carrying Dade and her parents had scarcely rounded the bend and clattered noisily out of sight before Callie began to feel far away from them. She loved them all, entirely and absolutely, but the sweet silence of this remote country estate swept over her like a cool wave in summer. Her primary emotion as she let her aching arm drop was relief.